


Moments That Mark a Life Well Lived

by SarahJeanne



Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 19:41:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/601381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SarahJeanne/pseuds/SarahJeanne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life is made of moments, big and small.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Moments That Mark a Life Well Lived

**Author's Note:**

  * For [evewithanapple](https://archiveofourown.org/users/evewithanapple/gifts).



1.  
They trek across town to the neighborhood Jack’s been prowling for weeks. They go on foot, which is one of Jack’s favorite things about Katherine--she’s never shied from walking all over the city with him. Jack stops in front of the run-down building he’s been eyeing and pulls Katherine to sit on the stoop across the street.

Katherine leans her head on his shoulder and the warmth of her cheek shoots through his whole body. “What are we looking at?”

Jack clears his throat. “I’ve been saving some money, and I’m going to be able to get spot in this building.”

Katherine slips her hand into his and squeezes. “That’s great, Jack. You’ve been working hard for it.”

Jack shifts on the step and holds Katherine’s hand tighter. “I know this isn’t the right way to do it, and I know this isn’t the kind of place you’re used to, but I wanted to know if you would come live here with me and be my wife.”

“Jack!” Katherine jumps to her feet and spins around to look at him. 

Jack looks up at her sheepishly. “What?”

“You’re asking me to marry you?”

Jack stand up and takes her hand. “I’m sure not going to ask your father!”

Katherine laughs.

“Well,” Jack prompts.

Katherine steps in close to him. “Yes, I will be your wife.”

Jack whoops and picks Katherine up, spinning her in the air until her skirt flies out around them;; her squeals ring through the street. “Put me down,” she insists.

“Why?” Jack asks, obliging anyway.

“So I can do this,” Katherine says. She wraps her arms around his waist and stands up on her toes to kiss him. They only stop, laughing, when a whistle comes from a window above them. 

“Come on,” Jack said, pulling Katherine across the street. “Let me show you inside.”

 

2.  
David comes in and without knocking and seamlessly fits himself into the dinner preparations.

David calls them out as soon as they’re all seated and the food is served. “What’s going on with you two? You both look strangely happy.”

“I’m pregnant!” Katherine blurts out around a mouthful of potatoes.

David’s fork clatters against his plate. “Pregnant?!”

Jack just grins.

David stands up and bends down to hug Katherine. “I’m so happy for you.”

“Thank you,” Katherine says, standing to wrap her arms around him.

Jack gets up from his seat to join them, draping his arm across David’s shoulders. “It’s a little early, but we want to ask you be godfather, so there’s always someone to encourage him.”

“Or her,” Katherine adds.

“Or her.”

“So will you?” Katherine asks, standing back so she can see David’s face.

“Of course, I will. I’d be honored,” David says, thumping Jack on the back.

“And you’ll still stay tonight?” Jack asks.

“You still want me to? Even with this, uh, new development.”

“Of course we do,” Katherine says. “Now you’re even more a part of our family than you were before.”

 

3.  
Jack pulls the car up in front of their building and honks the horn. He leans against the car and waits. Rosie comes out first, running toward the car. He catches her in mid-air as she jumps toward it. 

“You got it!”

“Yes, ma'am.” Jack kisses her on the forehead and sits her down behind the wheel. “One Model T at your service. Where are you going to take us first?”

“California!”

“Are you going to California without me?”

Jack turns around. “Never,” he says, leaning in to kiss Katherine. “I’d never go anywhere without you.”

Katherine smiles at him; her nose wrinkling up adorably as she does. “Pretty fancy car you got there, who’d you steal it from?”

“You don’t give me enough credit,” Jack says. “But as it turns out, sometimes it’s not all that bad being related to one of the richest men in New York.”

Katherine runs her hand over the seat. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Jack says, “when it means we have enough money to get out of New York every now and then.”

“And away from my father?”

“I never said that.”

Katherine laughs, before walking around the car and hopping in the passenger side, pulling Rosie to her. She pats’ the driver’s seat. “Let’s go!”

“Let’s go?”

Katherine turned up her nose in an affected sneer. “A car is not for looking at, Mr. Kelly.”

“Well, then, Mrs. Kelly, away we go.”

Jack readies the engine and leans in to the ignition. “Everyone ready?” he asks, poking Rosie in the stomach.

Rosie smiles and bounces up and down in her seat; Katherine grins at him over Rosie’s head.

Jack turns the key. He steps back around to the front of the car, flips the crank, and the engine jumps to life. Rosie’s giggles are loud enough to hear over the rumble.

Jack slides behind the wheel and reaches across Rosie’s lap to grab Katherine’s hand. “Where to, my dear?”

Katherine throws back her head and laughs. “Anywhere!”

 

4.  
They pull on coats and hats and scarfs in a boarding room in Albany.

"Don't forget your gloves," Katherine says to Rosie, as she rummages through her suitcase,

"Momma," Rosie replies, with the scornful attitude that's been creeping in more and more lately, "I am old enough to know how to dress myself."

Jack turns to scold her, but since she is standing by the door, covered in winter clothes from head to toe, and already holding her "Votes for Women" sign, she's proven her point.

Katherine emerges with her notebook and loops her arm though Jack's. "Let's go."

There are hundreds of women there, and a better showing of men than the last time they went to one of these.

Rosie huffs. “I’m never going to be able to get to the stairs.”

“What’s at the stairs?” Katherine asks.

“The senators,” Rosies says with disgust. “I want to tell them exactly what I think of their plan to keep women as disenfranchised, second class citizens who aren’t allowed to fully participate in the life of our country.”

“LEt me use your sign,” JAck says.

“Why?” Rosie asks, defiance back in her voice.

“It’s going to be a lot easier for you to fight your way to the stairs if you don’t have to deal with it.”

A grin breaks out on her face, and she hands him the sign. “Thanks, daddy,” she calls over her shoulder as she disappears into the crowd.

 

“What do you think?” Katherine asks, once Rosie’s completely out of sight. Are we doing a remarkable or a terrible job raising her?”

 

5.  
“Do you still think about Santa Fe?”

Jack looks up from the paper to where Katherine is hunched over her typewriter, writing another letter Rosie, no doubt.

“I like the life we’ve led, Katherine. I don’t regret anything.”

Katherine lays her glasses down on the desk and crosses the room to sit next to Jack on the couch. “That’s very sweet, but it’s not what I asked.”

Jack places his hand on her leg. “I think it must be a beautiful place, but I stopped obsessing about it long ago.”

“I think we should go.”

“You want to just up and travel across the country? We’re not kids anymore.”

“Who cares? Where’s your sense of adventure?”

“What if Rosie needs us?”

“Rosie is in college and very well taken care of by school and herself. I should tell her you said that, just to get back at you.”

“Anything but that.”  
“Okay, let’s do it.”

Katherine walks back to her desk and opens a drawer. “I’m so glad you said that,” she says, handing him an envelope. “These are our tickets. We leave tomorrow, David’s coming too.”

 

1.  
“Do you, Katherine Plumber Pulitzer, take this man as your lawfully wedded husband?”

“For sure.”

“And do you, John Christopher Kelly, take this woman as your lawfully wedded wife?”

“For sure.”


End file.
